A Blog on Mythology and occasionally on Reality.

Pages

Thursday, August 28, 2014

On
the eve of the ten day Ganesha festival, I found that I have written quite a
bit in my earlier blogs on Ganesha and different stories related to him. That
left me with very little on write on him, till I came across and interesting aspect
of Ganesha, i.e. the female Ganesha, variously referred to as Vinayaki,
Ganeshani, Vighneshwari, etc. all taken from the male names of Ganesha.

Ganeshini(Courtesy: www.kamakotimandali.com)

There
are different versions to this and let us try to understand them and the
concept behind it.

A
simplistic explanation of this could be from the goddess Malini, the elephant
headed goddess. According to some versions, Malini had drunk the bathwater of
Parvati, and given birth to a five-headed elephant child, which was claimed by
Parvati to be her child. Later, Shiva intervened and severed four heads to make
it Ganapati and declared the child to be that of Parvati. Some versions say
that though given birth by Parvati, Ganesha was nursed by Malini, and thus the
female version is none but a more deified version of Malini.

Another
interesting version says that once an asura named Andhaka, tried to take
Parvati by force to make her his wife. When Parvati cried for help, Shiva
appeared and struck him with his trident. However, Andhaka had a boon that from
every drop of blood spilt on the ground another Andhaka would be created. Parvati
then invoked all the forms of shakti
of all the gods. So, on her calling, Indrani (of Indra), Vaishnavi (of Vishnu),
Brahmani (of Brahma) etc. turned up and absorbed all the blood before it
touched the ground. Finally, it was left on Vinayaki (the shakti of Ganesha) to drink up the entire blood, which killed
Andhaka. This act is acknowledged in the form of Vinayaki Chaturthi, celebrated
on the fourth day after the new moon, i.e. Shukla
Paksha, of every month as per the Hindu calendar.

This
female form seems to have gained prominence with the rise of the tantric sect
around the 16th century. This sect believed that the female form
represented the reproductive powers which enabled the perpetuation and
nurturing of life, while the male form was responsible for implanting of the
life only. Thus according to these followers, the power to generate was more
venerable and thus they worshiped the female avatar of Ganesha as against the
more popular male version.

Ganeshini as part of the 64 Yoginis

Another
theory says that Vinayaki is part of the 64 Yoginis, (Chausath Yogini) or a part of the sapta-matrika, the seven-mothers. The presence of such sculptures
in the Yogini temples of Bhedaghat (Madhya Pradesh), Giryek (Bihar),
Ranipur Jharial (Orissa), and some such temples in Karnataka, Maharashtra,
Tamil Nadu and even Sri Lanka, only lends credence to the female form being a
part of the Yogini cult.

Vinayaki Bheraghat, Madhya Pradesh

The representation of Vinayaki or Ganeshi is similar to
the popular forms of Ganesha, however the presence of breasts and the lack of
tusks are the major differentiators. A
few are also shown her wearing a red saree, giving it a distinct female look.

Next, we will look at
another unusual form/representation of Ganesha! Till then, keep reading…….

Monday, August 18, 2014

On the occasion of
Janamashtami, the birthday of Krishna, I would like to discuss an important
allegation leveled against him in the epic Mahabharata. These views are not subjective opinion shrouded in devotion; rather,
these are objective views of a rank rational, if there was one!

In the epic, Mahabharat (Mb), the deaths of Bhishma, Drona and Karna
are all seen as acts of treachery by Krishna. The perception is that these
deaths were unethical and against all norms of war and also the fact that none
of the Pandava’s wanted to kill them under the said circumstances. They were
made to resort to such unethical means at the behest of Krishna.

Was this fair? Was it moral? Was it ethical?

To put this in perspective, Mb was
not about right or wrong or black and white, instead, it
teaches that life is grey. Defining the grey is not easy because it is deeply
rooted to the context. Every character has a shade of grey and that is what
makes him or her closer to a human being. S/he was a combination of strengths
and weaknesses and thus consequences.

While the said deaths are seen as injustices in the particular
episode of the war, one should also see it along with the innumerable
injustices meted out on the Pandavas that had taken place before the Kurukshetra,
like the incident of lakshagraha, malpractices
in the dice game leading to exile and that too with unfavourable conditions, Draupadi’s
insult, not giving the Promised Land after 13 years, to mention some of them.
The lives of the Pandavs had been spent more in jungles than the palace which
was their rightful home. The war itself was not of equals – the Kauravas had a
much bigger army, than that of the Pandavs. However, the deaths of the heroes
were not to be seen as a tit-for-tat justice system.

In the ‘killing’ of the said ‘heroes’ there was no ill design. Such
decisions were taken in what is better understood in management parlance as ethics of the emergency situation.
Ethics of emergency situation implies ethical decisions which have be taken in
dire emergencies. Emergency is better understood as crisis or an urgent
situation. This ethics of the emergency situation in this case was keeping
the greater good of society in view, and certainly not for personal gains. The
deviation from the norm, was not really for any personal benefit here at all,
including saving of lives. Krishna resorted to the ethics of the emergency
situation in getting all of them eliminated (not killed) toward the greater
good of humanity, through means that are questionable outside of the
context. They were all, by the way, associated with an unjust cause, and had
serious personal flaws in their characters.

Bhishma
was myopic in his ‘serving the throne’. The focus on saving the throne was so
strong that he could not see anything beyond it. He had a very myopic
definition of his existence and a life whose virtues had serious ramifications,
which in the larger interest were being misused by the perpetrators of evil.
Drona was guided by first an initial enmity with Drupad and then the future of
his son. Both were personal agendas, and he did not have any serious affinity
for either the Kauravs or Pandavs. A teacher of his stature who had much in his
power and capabilities was unfortunately driven by narrow considerations of
life. Karna, a hero in the truest sense of the word, was a misplaced hero. His
entire life was a quest for recognition, which made him fall slave to a person
who had nothing right on his side. His need to repay debts was so strong that
it became his sole objective of life.

Were any
of these heroes fighting a war of ethics and morals and was their objective to
fight a just war, when all in their hearts knew that the cause of the war
itself was flawed? What significant efforts were made by each one of them to
avoid or stop the war, especially when each one of them was in his own way
strong and could have insisted on stopping the war, by just not willing to participate
in the war?

Pandavs
needed justice to regain all they had lost, after paying a heavy price for their
mistakes and Krishna was guided here by the consideration of dharma
which had been taken to a different dimension altogether. In the accepted
interpretation, the ethics of the emergency situation notwithstanding, truth was
by and large given an unconditional status. Krishna’s major motivation was to
establish a sense of dharma and satya in the world to come. Did Krishna
resort to indulging in ‘lies’ (as many call it) anywhere in the epic except in
the specific case of Kurukshetra? Nowhere has Krishna advocated duty for the
sake of duty, not without consequential consideration, though certainly without
selfish motives. If efforts to establish dharma
and satya were selfish motives then he
surely had been selfish, lied and committed injustice. But ponder here – never
has a lie been uttered anywhere. What was uttered was untruth. Lies are spoken
with selfish motives, but an untruth need not have selfish motives.

Here I
am reminded of an episode from American Civil War. When General Sherman had
decided to burn down Atlanta, his Commander was shocked and wrote to him to
stop it. The General is supposed to have told his Commander, “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it”. According to him a war
has its own logic and momentum once it begins. It inevitably escalates, and you
cannot blame the soldiers and generals for the killing, sometimes mindless. You can only blame those who started it.1 Nothing could be different
in Kurukshetra too!

A close look of the epic will reveal that an austere and an
unforgiving streak of dharma appeared to run through the epic. If good people
are not allowed to win by any means, and if they had to fight justly, then one
must be prepared to face the fact that they might lose. There was no guarantee
that truth and goodness would prevail in human history. The Pandavas then would
have had to accept this and wait, for another day. The outcome of the entire
world would have been so different if the most important thing then was to just
fight fairly. Since they did not and fought the way they did, they failed in
their individual dharma, but managed to uphold dharma at large.

Needless to say that they were punished too with none of them
allowed to ‘live happily ever after’. Even Krishna and his community faced
elimination and died a bitter death. A big price to pay on the part of the Pandava’s
and Krishna for eliminating all that stood for wrong and erroneous and establish
the rule of the right and just.

About Me

Utkarsh has qualifications in Mythology, both Indian and World from Mumbai University. He is also a faculty on the subject of Comparative Mythology, at the Mumbai University, India. Utkarsh is also a regular trainer and lecturer on varying subjects at private organisations and educational institutions.

Utkarsh has more than 2 decades of experience in Sales and Business Development of IT products and solutions. He has worked with some of the well known IT organisations, some being start-ups, in India. Utkarsh is also a regular trainer and lecturer on varying subjects at private organisations and educational institutions.

Besides his Blog he is also a content provider to a few portals on similar subjects. Some of his short stories have been published in the well known literary story Blog, called LITIZEN. Utkarsh has also written a book on the subject of mythological-fiction, and working on another one, both of which are expected to be published in the next few months.